is a cunt.
Punk always made sense to me — I grew up in the ’70s, when the future looked bleak.
That’s why it’s almost laughable that my favorite song, Right to Work by Chelsea, now stands in such contrast to today’s twisted narrative — where avoiding work is practically a badge of honor. If anything, the new mantra seems to be the right not to work.
When I left school, getting an apprenticeship felt like chasing smoke. Same faces, same hopeless crowds at those cattle-call tests. At one, we were told not to be discouraged — over 2,000 applications for 5 jobs. Grim doesn’t cover it.
I finally landed something — barely worth mentioning — and spent the next decade watching every engineering firm I worked for shut down. Redundancy after redundancy.
But I kept going. Claiming £40 a week dole, handing most of it to my mum, standing in line to be treated like a leech — that was all the motivation I needed to keep searching. Not working wasn’t an option. It was survival.
I don’t regret any of it. But I do despair at how far we’ve drifted from honest graft — how work has become optional in the minds of some, and how delusional that belief really is.
Nominated by A Cunt for All Seasons link by Unkle Terry.